How to Make Money on Tumblr: 25 Proven Tips

When it comes to making money online, Tumblr is one network to consider. It’s blogging meets Facebook in a sense, because you can create blog posts that can be liked and shared by other Tumblr users. The catch with making money on Tumblr (or using Tumblr in general) is abiding by their rules. Specifically, they do not tolerate spam, and they consider spam the use of “deceptive means to generate revenue or traffic, or create blogs with the primary purpose of affiliate marketing.”

With that in mind, here are a variety of ways you can make money on Tumblr, along with some great resources, too.

Ways to Make Money on Tumblr

Reblogging is an important Tumblr feature to keep in mind when trying to make money on their network. Reblogging is essentially the option other Tumblr users have to repost posts from your Tumblr blog to theirs. Another important feature to keep in mind is tagging: tag your posts with a few good keywords so that your posts show up when someone is growing a tag.

If you are an author who wants to sell more books, create images with quotes from your book and post those images to your Tumblr blog along with a link to your book.

If you enjoy reading books, write quick book reviews with a link to the book on Amazon using a Amazon Associate’s link. Include other posts on your Tumblr blog too so that it doesn’t look like it is fully focused on affiliate marketing.

Speaking of Amazon, they sell just about anything. So no matter what your Tumblr blog is about, you can likely mention the occasional products in your posts and link to them on Amazon using an Amazon Associates link. Just don’t link to an affiliate product in every single post.

Got a popular Tumblr blog? Sell ad space on it just like you would any other blogging platform. The only difference is that you will have to code the ad into your Tumblr theme.

Infographics usually perform well on Tumblr. Use them to promote a course or e-book you are selling by posting the infographic along with a link to your course or e-book to learn more.

Do you have customers on Tumblr who say nice things about your business? Do a search on Tumblr to find out, then reblog all of the compliments you receive on your own Tumblr blog, turning it into a testimonials page.

Speaking of testimonials, post highlights of your best reviews for anything you sell (product, service, book, etc.) on your Tumblr with a link back to the applicable product, service, book, or other item.

If you’re a designer, post your best work on Tumblr along with a link to the relevant services page.

Speaking of design, if you can design templates, create some themes for Tumblr, and sell them in the Tumblr Theme Garden or on sites like Themeforest. You can also offer a service to design custom Tumblr themes (a keyword phrases that gets 3,600 monthly searches).

Get visitors to your Tumblr blog on your mailing list by including links to your squeeze page in the sidebar and a posts on your blog that highlight your lead magnet. Make sure your mailing list is fine tuned with an autoresponder series to help sell your products or services, or affiliate products you are promoting.

If you sell products on sites like Etsy, eBay, etc., take awesome photos of those products and share them on Tumblr with a link to your product.

If you really know your way around Tumblr, you can offer your services to others who need help setting up their Tumblr pages. There are over 800 gigs on Fiverr devoted to Tumblr.

Share your artwork or photography on Tumblr along with a link to your gallery / purchasing page for each piece.

Looking for a job in social media? Try moving away from the stuffy LinkedIn profile and create a resume using your Tumblr blog. You can include the basic details in your sidebar and make the posts a portfolio.

If you make money using Google AdSense on YouTube, share your YouTube videos on your Tumblr blog. The more views / shares you get from their network, the more clicks on your ads.

Find popular Tumblr blogs whose audiences would buy your product or service and see if they would be interested in reviewing it for their audience.